Erema; Or, My Father's Sin Part 35

The good and kind miller's perception of the likeness strengthened almost too fast, as if the wish were father to the thought, until I saw clearly how selfish I was in keeping him in that state so long; for I knew, from what Mrs. Busk had told me, that in spite of all his large and grand old English sentiments about his clothes, his wife would make him change them all ere ever she gave him a bit of dinner, and would force him then to take a gla.s.s of something hot. So I gave him a thousand thanks, though not a thousandth part of what he deserved, and saw him well on his homeward way before I went back to consider things.

As soon as my landlady was at leisure to come in and talk with me, and as soon as I had told her how things happened, and shown her our discovery, we both of us did the very same thing, and said almost the very same words. Our act was, with finger and nail and eye, to rime into every jot of it; and our words were,

"I am sure there is something inside. If not, it would open sensibly."

In the most senseless and obstinate manner it refused not only to open, but to disclose any thing at all about itself. Whether it ever had been meant to open, and if so, where, and by what means; whether, without any gift of opening, it might have a hidden thing inside; whether, when opened by force or skill, it might show something we had no business with, or (which would be far worse) nothing at all--good Mrs. Busk and myself tested, tapped, and felt, and blew, and listened, and tried every possible overture, and became at last quite put out with it.

"It is all of a piece with the villains that owned it," the postmistress exclaimed at last. "There is no penetrating either it or them. Most likely they have made away with this beautiful lady on the cover. Kill one, kill fifty, I have heard say. I hope Master Withypool will let out nothing, or evil it will be for you, miss. If I was you, I would carry a pistol."

"Now please not to frighten me, Mrs. Busk. I am not very brave at the best of times, and this has made me so nervous. If I carried a pistol, I should shoot myself the very first hour of wearing it. The mere thought of it makes me tremble. Oh, why was I ever born, to do man's work?"

"Because, miss, a man would not have done it half so well. When you saw that villain digging, a man would have rushed out and spoiled all chance. And now what man could have ever found this? Would Master Withypool ever have emptied the Moon River for a man, do you think? Or could any man have been down among us all this time, in this jealous place, without his business being long ago sifted out and scattered over him? No, no, miss; you must not talk like that--and with me as well to help you. The rogues will have reason to wish, I do believe, that they had only got a man to deal with."

In this argument there were points which had occurred to me before; but certainly it is a comfort to have one's own ideas in a doubtful matter reproduced, and perhaps put better, by a mind to which one may have lent them, perhaps, with a loan all unacknowledged. However, trouble teaches care, and does it so well that the master and the lesson in usage of words are now the same; therefore I showed no sign of being suggested with my own suggestions, but only asked, quietly, "What am I to do?"

"My dear young lady," Mrs. Busk replied, after stopping some time to think of it, "my own opinion is, for my part, that you ought to consult somebody."

"But I am, Mrs. Busk. I am now consulting you."

"Then I think, miss, that this precious case should be taken at once to a jeweler, who can open it without doing any damage, which is more than we can do."

"To be sure; I have thought of that," I replied. "But how can that be done without arousing curiosity?--without the jeweler seeing its contents, if indeed it has any? And in that case the matter would be no longer at our own disposal, as now it is. I have a great mind to split it with a hammer. What are the diamonds to me?"

"It is not the diamonds, but the picture, miss, that may be most important. And more than that, you might ruin the contents, so as not to make head or tale of them. No, no; it is a risk that must be run; we must have a jeweler, but not one of this neighborhood."

"Then I shall have to go to London again, and perhaps lose something most important here. Can you think of no other way out of it?"

"No, miss, at present I see nothing else. Unless you will place it all in the hands of the police."

"Constable Jobbins, to wit, or his son! No, thank you, Mrs. Busk, not yet. Surely we are not quite reduced to such a hopeless pa.s.s as that. My father knew what the police were worth, and so does Betsy, and so does Major Hockin. 'Pompous noodles,' the Major calls them, who lay hold of every thing by the wrong end."

"Then if he can lay hold of the right end, miss, what better could you do than consult him?"

I had been thinking of this already, and pride alone debarred me. That gentleman's active nature drove him to interfere with other people's business, even though he had never heard of them; and yet through some strange reasoning of his own, or blind adoption of public unreason, he had made me dislike, or at any rate not like, him, until he began to show signs at last of changing his opinion. And now the question was, had he done that enough for me, without loss of self-respect, to open my heart to him, and seek counsel?

In settling that point the necessity of the case overrode, perhaps, some scruples; in sooth, I had n.o.body else to go to. What could I do with Lord Castlewood? Nothing; all his desire was to do exactly what my father would have done: and my father had never done any thing more than rove and roam his life out. To my mind this was dreadful now, when every new thing rising round me more and more clearly to my mind established what I never had doubted--his innocence. Again, what good could I do by seeking Betsy's opinion about it, or that of Mrs. Price, or Stixon, or any other person I could think of? None whatever--and perhaps much harm.

Taking all in all, as things turn up, I believed myself to be almost equal to the cleverest of those three in sense, and in courage not inferior. Moreover, a sort of pride--perhaps very small, but not contemptible--put me against throwing my affairs so much into the hands of servants.

For this idea Uncle Sam, no doubt the most liberal of men, would perhaps condemn me. But still I was not of the grand New World, whose pedigrees are arithmetic (at least with many of its items, though the true Uncle Sam was the last for that); neither could I come up to the largeness of universal brotherhood. That was not to be expected of a female; and few things make a man more angry than for his wife to aspire to it. No such ideas had ever troubled me; I had more important things to think of, or, at any rate, something to be better carried out. And of all these desultory thoughts it came that I packed up that odious but very lovely locket, without further attempt to unriddle it, and persuaded my very good and clever Mrs. Busk to let me start right early. By so doing I could have three hours with a good gentleman always in a hurry, and yet return for the night to Shoxford, if he should advise me so.

Men and women seem alike to love to have their counsels taken; and the equinox being now gone by, Mrs. Busk was ready to begin before the tardy sun was up, who begins to give you short measure at once when he finds the weights go against him. Mrs. Busk considered not the sun, neither any of his doings. The time of day was more momentous than any of the sun's proceedings. Railway time was what she had to keep (unless a good customer dropped in), and as for the sun--"clock slow, clock fast," in the almanacs, showed how he managed things; and if that was not enough, who could trust him to keep time after what he had done upon the dial of Ahaz? Reasoning thus--if reason it was--she packed me off in a fly for the nearest railway station, and by midday I found the Major laboring on his ramparts.

After proper salutations, I could not help expressing wonder at the rapid rise of things. Houses here and houses there, springing up like children's teeth, three or four in a row together, and then a long gap, and then some more. And down the slope a grand hotel, open for refreshment, though as yet it had no roof on; for the Major, in virtue of his charter, defied all the magistrates to stop him from selling whatever was salable on or off the premises. But n.o.blest and grandest of all to look at was the "Bruntsea Athenaeum, Lyceum, a.s.sembly-Rooms, Inst.i.tution for Mutual Instruction, Christian Young Men's Congress, and Sanitary, Saline, Hydropathic Hall, at nominal prices to be had gratis."

"How you do surprise me!" I said to Major Hockin, after reading all that, which he kindly requested me to do with care; "but where are the people to come from?"

"Erema," he replied, as if that question had been asked too often, "you have not had time to study the laws of political economy--the n.o.blest of n.o.ble sciences. The first of incontrovertible facts is that supply creates demand. Now ask yourself whether there could even be a Yankee if ideas like yours had occurred to Columbus?"

This was beyond me; for I never could argue, and strove to the utmost not to do so. "You understand those things, and I do not," said I, with a smile, which pleased him. "My dear aunt Mary always says that you are the cleverest man in the world; and she must know most about it."

"Partiality! partiality!" cried the Major, with a laugh, and pulling his front hair up. "Such things pa.s.s by me like the idle wind; or rather, perhaps, they sadden me, from my sense of my own deficiencies. But, bless me! dinner must be waiting. Look at that fellow's trowel--he knows: he turns up the point of it like a spoon. They say that he can smell his dinner two miles off. We all dine at one o'clock now, that I may rout up every man-Jack of them."

The Major sounded a steam-guard's whistle, and led me off in the rapidly vanis.h.i.+ng wake of his hungry workmen.

CHAPTER XLV

CONVICTION

Sir Montague Hockin, to my great delight, was still away from Bruntsea.

If he had been there, it would have been a most awkward thing for me to meet him, or to refuse to do so. The latter course would probably have been the one forced upon me by self-respect and affection toward my cousin; and yet if so, I could scarcely have avoided an explanation with my host. From the nature of the subject, and several other reasons, this would have been most unpleasant; and even now I was haunted with doubts, as I had been from the first, whether I ought not to have told Mrs.

Hockin long ago what had been said of him. At first sight that seemed the honest thing to do; but three things made against it. It might seem forward and meddlesome; it must be a grievous thing to my cousin to have his sad story discussed again; and lastly, I had promised Mrs. Price that her words should go no further. So that on the whole perhaps I acted aright in keeping that infamous tale to myself as long as ever it was possible.

But now ere ever I spoke of him--which I was always loath to do--Mrs.

Hockin told me that he very seldom came to see them now, and when he did come he seemed to be uneasy and rather strange in his manners. I thought to myself that the cause of this was clear. Sir Montague, knowing that I went to Castlewood, was p.r.i.c.ked in his conscience, and afraid of having his vile behavior to my cousin disclosed. However, that idea of mine was wrong, and a faulty conception of simple youth. The wicked forgive themselves so quickly, if even they find any need of it, that every body else is supposed to do the same. With this I have no patience. A wrong unrepented of and unatoned gathers interest, instead of getting discount, from lost time. And so I hated that man tenfold.

Good Mrs. Hockin lamented his absence not only for the sake of her darling fowls, but also because she considered him a check upon the Major's enterprise. Great as her faith was in her husband's ability and keenness, she was often visited with dark misgivings about such heavy outlay. Of economy (as she often said) she certainly ought to know something, having had to practice it as strictly as any body in the kingdom, from an age she could hardly remember. But as for what was now brought forward as a great discovery--economy in politics--Mrs. Hockin had tried to follow great opinions, but could only find, so far, downright extravagance. Supply (as she had observed fifty times with her own butcher and fishmonger), instead of creating demand, produced a lot of people hankering round the corner, till the price came down to nothing. And if it were so with their inst.i.tutions--as her dear husband called his new public-house--who was to find all the interest due to the building and land societies? Truly she felt that Sir Rufus Hockin, instead of doing any good to them, had behaved very badly in leaving them land, and not even a s.h.i.+lling to work it with.

It relieved her much to tell me this, once for all and in strict confidence; because her fine old-fas.h.i.+oned (and we now may say quite obsolete) idea of duty toward her husband forbade her ever to say to him, or about him, when it could be helped, any thing he might not like, any thing which to an evil mind might convey a desire on her part to meddle with--with--

"Political economy," I said; and she laughed, and said, Yes, that was just it. The Major of course knew best, and she ought with all her heart to trust him not to burden their old days with debt, after all the children they had brought up and fairly educated upon the professional income of a distinguished British officer, who is not intended by his superiors to provide successors.

"Perhaps it is like the boiled eggs they send me," the old lady said, with her soft sweet smile, "for my poor hens to sit upon. Their race is too good to be made common. So now they get tinkers' and tailors' boys, after much compet.i.tion, and the crammed sons of cooks. And in peace-time they do just as well."

Of such things I knew nothing; but she seemed to speak with bitterness, the last thing to be found in all her nature, yet discoverable--as all bad things (except its own) are--by the British government. I do not speak from my own case, in which they discovered nothing.

By the time these things had been discussed, my host (who was always particular about his dress) came down to dinner, and not until that was over could I speak of the subject which had brought me there. No sooner had I begun my tale than they both perceived that it must neither be flurried nor interrupted, least of all should it be overheard.

"Come into my lock-up," cried the Major; "or, better still, let us go out of doors. We can sit in my snuggery on the cliff, with only gulls and jackdaws to listen, and mount my telescope and hoist my flag, and the men know better than to skulk their work. I can see every son of a gun of them as clearly as if I had them on parade. You wish Mrs. Hockin to come, I suppose. Very well, let us be off at once. I shall count my fellows coming back from dinner."

With a short quick step the Major led the way to a beautifully situated outpost at a corner of the cliff, where land and sea for many a fair league rolled below. A niche of the chalk had been cleverly enlarged and scooped into a sh.e.l.l-shaped bower, not, indeed, gloriously overhung, as in the far West might have been, but broken of its white defiant glare by climbing and wandering verdure. Seats and slabs of oak were fixed to check excess of chalkiness, and a parapet of a pattern which the Major called Egyptian saved fear of falling down the cliff, and served to spread a paper on, or to rest a telescope.

"From this point," said the Major, crossing wiry yet substantial legs, "the whole of my little domain may be comprised as in a bird's-eye view.

It is nothing, of course, much less than nothing, compared with the Earl of Crowcombe's, or the estate of Viscount Gamberley; still, such as it is, it carries my ideas, and it has an extent of marine frontage such as they might envy. We are asked 5 pounds per foot for a thread of land fronting on a highway, open to every kind of annoyance, overlooked, without any thing to look at. How much, then, per fathom (or measure, if you please, by cable-lengths) is land worth fronting the n.o.ble, silent, uncontaminating, healthful sea? Whence can come no coster-mongers'

cries, no agitating skir of bagpipes or the maddening hurdy-gurdy, no German band expecting half a crown for the creation of insanity; only sweet murmur of the wavelets, and the melodious whistle of a boatman catching your breakfast lobster. Where, again, if you love the picturesque--"

"My dear," said Mrs. Hockin, gently, "you always were eloquent from the first day I saw you; and if you reconst.i.tute our borough, as you hope, and enter Parliament for Bruntsea, what a sensation you will create!

But I wished to draw your attention to the fact that Erema is waiting to tell her tale."

"To be sure. I will not stop her. Eloquence is waste of time, and I never yet had half a second to spare. Fear no eloquence from me; facts and logic are my strong points. And now, Erema, show what yours are."

At first this made me a little timid, for I had never thought that any strong points would be needed for telling a simple tale. To my mind the difficulty was, not to tell the story, but to know what to make of it when told; and soon I forgot all about myself in telling what I had seen, heard, and found.

The Major could not keep himself from stamping great holes through his--something I forget the name of, but people sow it to make turf of chalk--and dear "Aunt Mary's" soft pink cheeks, which her last grandchild might envy, deepened to a tone of rose; while her eyes, so full of heavenly faith when she got upon lofty subjects, took a most human flash and sparkle of hatred not theological.

"Seven!" she cried; "oh, Nicholas, Nicholas, you never told me there were seven!"